The idea of "existential despair" is of interest here. This is not being dead, or a fear of death, or even a fear of being alive. This is a feeling of not being allowed to exist.Persons suffering from pre-oedipal psychopathology generally are able to function quite well in their work life and in interpersonal relations which are not too intimate, and yet they are prey to attacks of intense oral rage which is directed against others or themselves. Their object relationships vacillate between superficiality and clinging dependency and manipulative demandingness. They have little tolerance for stress and are hypersensitive to criticism. They exhibit an outward calm, while inwardly feeling chaotic and inferior, especially with respect to persons in authority. They tend to suffer from any combination of two or more neurotic, seemingly psychotic, psychosomatic or socio-pathic symptoms and they tend to complain of diffuse free-floating anxiety, of a pervasive sense of emptiness and of existential despair or of a vague feeling that things are not as they should be with them.
When a twin dies before birth, the sole survivor needs help and understanding. Womb twin survivors are the sole survivors of a twin or multiple pregnancy. This group, 1 in 10 of the population, includes survivors of a stillbirth, miscarriage, abortion and a "vanishing twin" pregnancy. It is a story of a twin bond broken by death, leaving a lonely survivor.
Showing posts with label Black Hole. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Black Hole. Show all posts
Monday, November 28, 2011
A healing path (5) no worst: not feeling allowed to exist
The worst part of the Black Hole is the way you represent in your mind the fact that your twin ceased to exist. This is an extract from an article about the so-called "Pre-oedipal psychopathology." (In other words, being a womb twin survivor, but then these people don't know about us)
Saturday, November 26, 2011
A healing path (5) no worst: depression
Depression has been well described: here are words by Gerard Manley Hopkins, who obviously experienced the feelings of depression himself.
No worst, there is none.
Pitched past pitch of grief,
More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
Comforter, where, where is your comforting?
Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?
My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief
Woe, world-sorrow; on an age-old anvil wince and sing—
Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked ‘No ling
ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief’.
O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall(Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89). Poems. 1918.)
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
May who ne’er hung there. Nor does long our small
Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,
Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all
Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.
Monday, November 21, 2011
A healing path (3) The Black Hole - betrayal
In the Black Hole, which is the story of the death of your womb twin, is also the story of your twin's brief life, which could be measured in hours, days or months, depending on what happened. The trouble is that a promise was made at conception, that there would be two, but then there was one.
That sense of a disappointed expectation is a betrayal. It's a sense of being precipitated into an alien world for which one is not equipped. Betrayal breeds resentment in the betrayed, and when life betrays you, there can be no other response but to resent life itself. Life has been cruel and you have been hurt by the simple act of being the sole survivor. That is a raw deal indeed.
That sense of a disappointed expectation is a betrayal. It's a sense of being precipitated into an alien world for which one is not equipped. Betrayal breeds resentment in the betrayed, and when life betrays you, there can be no other response but to resent life itself. Life has been cruel and you have been hurt by the simple act of being the sole survivor. That is a raw deal indeed.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
A healing path (3) The black hole: death
In the Black Hole, were you spend a great deal of your life - if not your whole life - lies a memory of death. It's not your own death, but the death of your womb twin, and therein lies the confusion that is causing the problem,
There are many ways to relive the story of the life and death of your womb twin. Here is what one womb twin survivor told me of her story:
Thursday, June 16, 2011
A healing path for womb twin survivors - soul pain
The healing path for womb twin survivors is a way of treating soul pain.
In his web site about soul pain, "Journey of Soul," Clay Miller writes:
My own definition of soul pain would be a level of pain that is neither physical nor is it emotional - it's more spiritual. Its to do with loss and grief and in particular it concerns broken dreams and disappointed expectations. For some, they feel pain on behalf of others, and this hurts them, because they can do nothing to help that other person in their pain.
In his web site about soul pain, "Journey of Soul," Clay Miller writes:
Life is not about feeling good all the time. It's about being fully present with what is and letting everything in so that it can move through you. The nature of life is change and fluidity. And the extent to which you cling to permanence, security, stability is the extent to which you are committing soulful suicide and cannot be truly present in the world.
My own definition of soul pain would be a level of pain that is neither physical nor is it emotional - it's more spiritual. Its to do with loss and grief and in particular it concerns broken dreams and disappointed expectations. For some, they feel pain on behalf of others, and this hurts them, because they can do nothing to help that other person in their pain.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
The Black Hole (3) death, suicide and murder
There can be such a deep black hole for some womb twin survivors that they begin to think of death as a solution to life's problems:
This was related to the fact that the Riggi couple had divorced, and that their father was claiming custody.
But what if this woman is a womb twin survivor? What if she was so attached to her children that she would sooner die than have them taken from her, and if they die too, then her husband could not have them?
Is this a faint echo of the sense of entitlement that so many womb twin survivors feel, which makes them hold on to possessions, painful relationships and above all endless, angry resentment, until they will do anything rather than let go?
The womb twin hypothesis says this:
Womb twin survivors spend their lives re-enacting the life and death of their womb twin. Nothing is more important than that, even life itself.
If we could reach people before they become totally eclipsed by their Black Hole, we may be able to save their lives and the lives they destroy. All it takes is the Womb Twin work:
Once the real pre-birth scene, which is being constantly re-enacted, is made clear, then the re-enactment tends to diminish or cease altogether, greatly to the benefit of the individual.
It is so very simple, and so very hard to believe, even by womb twin survivors themselves. It is a sad business to hear about the brutal stabbing to death of young children by their seemingly devoted mother, and sadder still to think how easily this tragedy could have been prevented.
For me, this is very difficult knowledge to have: I get attacked and vilified by many people and told to mind my own business, yet I see so clearly how people may be helped by a single question:
"Are you a womb twin survivor?"
If the answer is yes (or even seems possibly to be yes) then the womb twin work can begin.
- "There is nothing for me here: I would be better off dead."
- "If I have to do this alone I would rather not do it at all. I would rather die."
- "I cannot live without the one I love and I would die if he /she left me."
- "I cannot cope with the pain and destruction I see everywhere : I don't want to be in this world any more."
This was related to the fact that the Riggi couple had divorced, and that their father was claiming custody.
But what if this woman is a womb twin survivor? What if she was so attached to her children that she would sooner die than have them taken from her, and if they die too, then her husband could not have them?
Is this a faint echo of the sense of entitlement that so many womb twin survivors feel, which makes them hold on to possessions, painful relationships and above all endless, angry resentment, until they will do anything rather than let go?
The womb twin hypothesis says this:
Womb twin survivors spend their lives re-enacting the life and death of their womb twin. Nothing is more important than that, even life itself.
If we could reach people before they become totally eclipsed by their Black Hole, we may be able to save their lives and the lives they destroy. All it takes is the Womb Twin work:
Once the real pre-birth scene, which is being constantly re-enacted, is made clear, then the re-enactment tends to diminish or cease altogether, greatly to the benefit of the individual.
It is so very simple, and so very hard to believe, even by womb twin survivors themselves. It is a sad business to hear about the brutal stabbing to death of young children by their seemingly devoted mother, and sadder still to think how easily this tragedy could have been prevented.
For me, this is very difficult knowledge to have: I get attacked and vilified by many people and told to mind my own business, yet I see so clearly how people may be helped by a single question:
"Are you a womb twin survivor?"
If the answer is yes (or even seems possibly to be yes) then the womb twin work can begin.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
The Black Hole (2) Negativity
Is this how you feel?
There is a grey cloud with me always. It hovers just out of sight. It does not lie within me, but outside of me. It is Other. It is a brooding, silent presence of mystery, it is sadness and desolation. In it there is no hope, no joy. All my life I have tried to explain the cloud that haunts me by pretending it is part of me. I have walked a way of inner emptiness. I have quelled all desire and yearning. I have used all my inner strength for this sacrifice. I have surrendered all these things and handed over my life. I have become nothing, without feeling, without desire. I am grey. I have become the cloud.
Pride, is it said, is the father of all sin. I would put it differently: it is the father of all negativity. Pride is the deliberate concealment of shame by denial. This careful concealment is a fearful, rigid, negative and deadening place. Sometimes negativity is mistaken for something other than pride, but if we take a close look we will find pride there.
Fearful
If you deny feeling shame then you are blinding yourself to the consequences of your actions. You may do this by pretending that the shameful thing you are doing (or not doing) isn't happening. Alternatively, you may pretend that the thing you are doing (or choosing not to do) is nothing to be ashamed of. Either way exposure is to be feared.
Rigid
The concealment of shame by denial imposes a kind of paralysis. By adopting "standards" as artificial, rigid structures that must be maintained at all costs, it is possible to create a kind of "smoke screen" that conceals the shame beneath. This rigidity, maintained by fear of being discovered, acts counter to
change and personal progression. It soaks up personal power to the point where you are hemmed in by "musts" and "shoulds". Every path towards fulfilment is blocked by some rigid structure that you have
created for yourself.
Negative
If you are always trying to anticipate circumstances where you may be exposed so that you can take avoiding action, that takes up a whole lot of energy.! The first casualty in this war against imagined shadows is trust. Negativity is a deliberate choice. Given the chance to be positive about other people or the world, you probably refuse. Terrible things may happen if you are open, so its best to say nothing.
Apathetic
This negative place is lifeless and static. It creates a state of being "stuck”, but remember: your resistance to change has a very important meaning. This choice to remain helpless and out of control is created in your imagination. It is a sad, lonely and lifeless place with no escape. If you were once trapped in the womb with a dead presence that did not respond or change, then negativity is your way of life. You feel isolated and unseen. In your mind and heart there is a kind of hard, cold "spiritual deadness" that you are deeply ashamed of.
Are you stuck in a place of negativity? Watch this and discover how you are deliberately keeping yourself trapped in a negative place.....
I wonder why you are doing this to yourself?
It can only be in order to keep alive your Dream of the Womb.
There is a grey cloud with me always. It hovers just out of sight. It does not lie within me, but outside of me. It is Other. It is a brooding, silent presence of mystery, it is sadness and desolation. In it there is no hope, no joy. All my life I have tried to explain the cloud that haunts me by pretending it is part of me. I have walked a way of inner emptiness. I have quelled all desire and yearning. I have used all my inner strength for this sacrifice. I have surrendered all these things and handed over my life. I have become nothing, without feeling, without desire. I am grey. I have become the cloud.
Pride, is it said, is the father of all sin. I would put it differently: it is the father of all negativity. Pride is the deliberate concealment of shame by denial. This careful concealment is a fearful, rigid, negative and deadening place. Sometimes negativity is mistaken for something other than pride, but if we take a close look we will find pride there.
Fearful
If you deny feeling shame then you are blinding yourself to the consequences of your actions. You may do this by pretending that the shameful thing you are doing (or not doing) isn't happening. Alternatively, you may pretend that the thing you are doing (or choosing not to do) is nothing to be ashamed of. Either way exposure is to be feared.
Rigid
The concealment of shame by denial imposes a kind of paralysis. By adopting "standards" as artificial, rigid structures that must be maintained at all costs, it is possible to create a kind of "smoke screen" that conceals the shame beneath. This rigidity, maintained by fear of being discovered, acts counter to
change and personal progression. It soaks up personal power to the point where you are hemmed in by "musts" and "shoulds". Every path towards fulfilment is blocked by some rigid structure that you have
created for yourself.
Negative
If you are always trying to anticipate circumstances where you may be exposed so that you can take avoiding action, that takes up a whole lot of energy.! The first casualty in this war against imagined shadows is trust. Negativity is a deliberate choice. Given the chance to be positive about other people or the world, you probably refuse. Terrible things may happen if you are open, so its best to say nothing.
Apathetic
This negative place is lifeless and static. It creates a state of being "stuck”, but remember: your resistance to change has a very important meaning. This choice to remain helpless and out of control is created in your imagination. It is a sad, lonely and lifeless place with no escape. If you were once trapped in the womb with a dead presence that did not respond or change, then negativity is your way of life. You feel isolated and unseen. In your mind and heart there is a kind of hard, cold "spiritual deadness" that you are deeply ashamed of.
Are you stuck in a place of negativity? Watch this and discover how you are deliberately keeping yourself trapped in a negative place.....
I wonder why you are doing this to yourself?
It can only be in order to keep alive your Dream of the Womb.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
The Black Hole (1) Survivor guilt, anyone?
What is in your Black Hole? If you are a womb twin survivor and feel as if you shouldn't be here at all, here is a lovely reminder of how life itself is a gift.
The womb twin work is mainly about reconnecting with the life YOU have, that is distinct from your twin's little short life. It is entirely yours. If you don't live it, no one will.
So here is the perfect antidote to survivor guilt: GRATITUDE!!
Matt started out being photographed all over the world and then he started dancing with people.... this is how he explained what became his way of life for a few years...
This just came to me today - I was supposed to write about womb twin kids today and how parents can play special games with their children to help them to speak about the lost twin to each other and along came dancing.
Maybe dancing with your kids to celebrate life is better than worrying about what to say!
Have a great day and when the Black Hole beckons ( watch this if you dont know what I mean) remember always to dance!
The womb twin work is mainly about reconnecting with the life YOU have, that is distinct from your twin's little short life. It is entirely yours. If you don't live it, no one will.
So here is the perfect antidote to survivor guilt: GRATITUDE!!
Matt started out being photographed all over the world and then he started dancing with people.... this is how he explained what became his way of life for a few years...
This just came to me today - I was supposed to write about womb twin kids today and how parents can play special games with their children to help them to speak about the lost twin to each other and along came dancing.
Maybe dancing with your kids to celebrate life is better than worrying about what to say!
Have a great day and when the Black Hole beckons ( watch this if you dont know what I mean) remember always to dance!
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Chapter 26: the Black hole
This chapter will explore what feelings are in your Black Hole, how you created it, why you remain in it and how you can begin to find your way out.
The feelings in your Black Hole
The feelings in your Black Hole will take various forms, according to the details of your personal womb story and whether or not your twin was capable of response.
The death of a responsive womb twin
If your womb twin was responsive and then was lost, the pain is in the loss. If this is your story, you have something deep in your mind and soul that is about despair, shame, death, grief and pain. This complex of painful feelings is an integral part of your inner self. However hard you try, it does not heal.
The death of an unresponsive womb twin
If your womb twin remained with you but was unresponsive, the pain in your Black Hole arises out of a frustrated desire for connection. This feels more like resentment than pain. Beneath the resentment lies a terrible sadness, a sense of lack. You have probably adapted to this feeling by deciding that you need nothing and no one.
How you created your own Black Hole
Healing will only begin when you are ready to stop rushing about, looking for different kinds of anaesthetic and using it to forget your inner pain. Only then will you discover that it is self-inflicted and you are the author of your own misfortune. You have built your own Black Hole out of these painful memories and only you can change them.
Order your copy now and save [here]
The feelings in your Black Hole
The feelings in your Black Hole will take various forms, according to the details of your personal womb story and whether or not your twin was capable of response.
The death of a responsive womb twin
If your womb twin was responsive and then was lost, the pain is in the loss. If this is your story, you have something deep in your mind and soul that is about despair, shame, death, grief and pain. This complex of painful feelings is an integral part of your inner self. However hard you try, it does not heal.
The death of an unresponsive womb twin
If your womb twin remained with you but was unresponsive, the pain in your Black Hole arises out of a frustrated desire for connection. This feels more like resentment than pain. Beneath the resentment lies a terrible sadness, a sense of lack. You have probably adapted to this feeling by deciding that you need nothing and no one.
How you created your own Black Hole
Healing will only begin when you are ready to stop rushing about, looking for different kinds of anaesthetic and using it to forget your inner pain. Only then will you discover that it is self-inflicted and you are the author of your own misfortune. You have built your own Black Hole out of these painful memories and only you can change them.
Order your copy now and save [here]
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Are YOU a womb twin survivor? Would YOU choose healing?
Please remember that there is another little version of you who didn't make it. Half of you is wanting to die and be elsewhere ( your lost twin) the other half wants to be alive and engaged with things here ( that's you) .
You are split, torn in two. You are two people, one feeding, one starving; one thriving, one fading.
You are fighting with yourself and you will of course resist your healing every step of the way. You will even fight me as I offer you healing. It's the way you are made, with two opposing sides. Because of that trait in your character, it will all have to be done in your own way and your own time.
But the choice now is: You could resist, create difficulties and blocks, and spend even longer in hell, or you could rise up and get a grip, just because you feel like it.
What is your choice: to be or not to be?
That indeed IS the question!
You are split, torn in two. You are two people, one feeding, one starving; one thriving, one fading.
You are fighting with yourself and you will of course resist your healing every step of the way. You will even fight me as I offer you healing. It's the way you are made, with two opposing sides. Because of that trait in your character, it will all have to be done in your own way and your own time.
But the choice now is: You could resist, create difficulties and blocks, and spend even longer in hell, or you could rise up and get a grip, just because you feel like it.
What is your choice: to be or not to be?
That indeed IS the question!
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Are you in a Black Hole today?
In a Black Hole?
Stuck in your beta energy?
Lost in despair? Just watch this.
When you fall down, what will you do? Are you going to finish strong?
Stuck in your beta energy?
Lost in despair? Just watch this.
When you fall down, what will you do? Are you going to finish strong?
Sunday, November 22, 2009
New Youtube movie : The black hole
Take a look at my new movie! Comments welcomed.
The Black Hole - a poem for womb twin survivors
The Black Hole - a poem for womb twin survivors
The black hole
The black hole is death and dissolution, entrophy and ecstatic union with emptiness.
The black hole is pain and terror and the darkness of non-being.
The black hole is power, essence, and the majesty of God-in-me
The black hole is energy and creativity centred into a split second of life giving.
The black hole is a teacher, to fear and yet live, to live and not to fear to die.
Come with me now into the black hole and you and I may come to rebirth.
Into the black hole: come!
I am calling you back to the place of origin!
Into the black hole; go!
I send you into the dark to find the light!
On the far side after the maelstrom there is power and purity, and the pain of absolute unselfish love.
On the far side, where we may stand, there is silver light and surrender to the infinite power of simply being.
And when the moment comes to let life go in all its richness, the black hole beckons us, with riches beyond our wildest dreams.
Let us not fear the black hole or attempt to understand-
Let us be open to the goodness and the power that can be ours if we give it way, let it go, and surrender to the breath of life that blows in gales from out of it.
Blown by the breath of God that pours from the black hole, we can live according to the will of the wind;
And in our last hours feel the suction draw us down into that place of origin and creation that is the place of dissolution and death.
Sink willingly into black hole! It is the cloud of unknowing, filled with ageless mystery : it is the gate to paradise.
If we wait in this holy space together and listen to the silent and mysterious loving power within;
Then truly we will have a taste of paradise this side of death.
Monday, August 31, 2009
The womb twin work
I spend a lot of time explaining my way of working - its been a problem for some time.
The secret purpose of the womb twin survivors is to remain in the black hole - ie not develop, never get off the ground, remain in a state of arrested development etc.
There would be loving and logical reasons for this: " I must stay here with my lost twin and not develop either".
If someone I am working with draws out of me a series of explanations, directions and suggestions by their own resistance, then they stay helplessly stuck, in the black hole with their lost twin.
In other words the process for the womb twin survivor is to hand over autonomy to the therapist and let them take control - but this seems illogical. However if the secret purpose is to remain the beta self, then that makes perfect logical sense.
I work in a directive way because this isn't therapy. I don't play the total empathy game (that keeps me helpless in someone elses Black Hole - no thanks.) But I do use empathy informed with understanding on my part so there's a lot of dialogue as I check things out as we go.
I decided it wasnt therapy a long time ago. Its more like teaching but it has a therapeutic aim.
A teacher doesn't wait till everyone is ready to learn but rather assumes that the person is there to learn. There is no point in coming to a teacher and then resisting the very process of learning. But that's not quite it for me, when it comes to the womb twin work.
A therapist stays with the client in their inner world and accepts as truth everything going on there. In absolute empathy and kindness, working with the resistance. But always aware of unconscious process and transference. But that's not quite it either.
What I do is first to inform with empathy, then listen with open-mindedness, then guide as seems appropriate , then fearlessly negotiate a way forward that suits the individual, all the time emphasising the fact that the individual is in charge of their own healing.
We found a name for it this morning : therapeutic guidance for wombtwin survivors.
I wonder: is this what womb twin survivors experience? Is this what they need? This is what I have learned to do over the last five years or so. It is what I intend to do, but intention may not be enough. I am self taught and have no teachers, other then the womb twin survivors I work with.
I would welcome comments and suggestions.
Article about therapy with womb twin survivors
The secret purpose of the womb twin survivors is to remain in the black hole - ie not develop, never get off the ground, remain in a state of arrested development etc.
There would be loving and logical reasons for this: " I must stay here with my lost twin and not develop either".
If someone I am working with draws out of me a series of explanations, directions and suggestions by their own resistance, then they stay helplessly stuck, in the black hole with their lost twin.
In other words the process for the womb twin survivor is to hand over autonomy to the therapist and let them take control - but this seems illogical. However if the secret purpose is to remain the beta self, then that makes perfect logical sense.
I work in a directive way because this isn't therapy. I don't play the total empathy game (that keeps me helpless in someone elses Black Hole - no thanks.) But I do use empathy informed with understanding on my part so there's a lot of dialogue as I check things out as we go.
I decided it wasnt therapy a long time ago. Its more like teaching but it has a therapeutic aim.
A teacher doesn't wait till everyone is ready to learn but rather assumes that the person is there to learn. There is no point in coming to a teacher and then resisting the very process of learning. But that's not quite it for me, when it comes to the womb twin work.
A therapist stays with the client in their inner world and accepts as truth everything going on there. In absolute empathy and kindness, working with the resistance. But always aware of unconscious process and transference. But that's not quite it either.
What I do is first to inform with empathy, then listen with open-mindedness, then guide as seems appropriate , then fearlessly negotiate a way forward that suits the individual, all the time emphasising the fact that the individual is in charge of their own healing.
We found a name for it this morning : therapeutic guidance for wombtwin survivors.
I wonder: is this what womb twin survivors experience? Is this what they need? This is what I have learned to do over the last five years or so. It is what I intend to do, but intention may not be enough. I am self taught and have no teachers, other then the womb twin survivors I work with.
I would welcome comments and suggestions.
Article about therapy with womb twin survivors
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